Plaza Art Fair, Homemade Sushi

Happy October!!

How crazy it is to say October already.  But I must say, I’m ready for beautifully colored crunchy leaves! Because, yes, I DO walk out of my way to step on especially crunchy looking leaves.  It’s just a natural part of fall, people.

Here’s the latest update in our part of the world:

Plaza Art Fair

This past weekend my parents were in town visiting and we walked around the Plaza Art Fair on Sunday afternoon.  The weather was perfect!It appeared Erik was feeling like a model because he kept posing for pictures.  I think it’s the flannel getting to his head : )

See??

Now let’s play …. where’s Waldo Erik? Okay, he’s not that hard to spot.  And here’s my wonderful mother and me.  It was bright outside, obviously.Birthday Dinner

Erik turned 29 yesterday so I wanted to make something “fun” for dinner. 

Read: sushi. I used a sushi wrap kit with already sized nori strips and made veggie rolls using sticky rice, carrots, cucumber and avocado.Erik was banned from the kitchen so I could surprise him, but he came too close and guessed what I was making by the smell of the nori, ha :pResults?

It was a lot of fun to make but I wish I would have had a full nori sheet that I could cut myself rather than the pre made strips.  I wasn’t able to make them the size I wanted and I just didn’t feel as cool with premade strips.

Being simple veggie rolls with virtually no seasonings, they were kind of bland, but overall not bad for my first homemade sushi attempt, ha.  It gave me ideas for next time and now I’ll know how to improve them.

Served with fresh salad made with fruits and veggies from our Door to Door Organics loot.And now, the weekend!!  

What are you looking forward to this weekend?? 

Door to Door Organics

First off … my wonderful husband has a birthday this week!!! He’s almost an old man, now 29… HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ERIK!! : ]

So much to blog about, so little time! 

A lot has been going on in the The Purple Carrot household as of late, many changes have occurred, and bounteous photos have been snapped.  But one post at a time! 

For now, some recent occurrences and discoveries.  First up, occurrences.

Stocking vending machines with Erik on my Monday’s off + lunchtime + Whole Foods + salad bar = my stomach’s delight.

We sat outside, as you can see … gotta soak up all the fall weather while it lasts!

Door to Door Organics

And now a discovery:

I have a husband who, upon leaving stores, likes to grab all the free magazines and newspapers he can find.  Normally, I find this to be an annoyance because upon going home, it simply creates trash.  However, once in awhile he discovers something neat and then I thank him.

This time his neat discovery is called … Door to Door Organics.  Very simply put, Kansas City Door to Door Organics delivers organic (and local, when possible) fruits and veggies right to your door.  It sounded awesome to us, so we thought we’d try it.

You have the option of selecting different sized bundles of just fruit, just veggies, or both.  Since we eat a lot, we chose a large bundle of both.  We’ve only gotten it two weeks thus far and so far, we love it.

Week One

You can simply leave a cooler on your front porch and they will put the produce in your cooler, ice pack included.  If you don’t have a cooler, it’ll be left in a box.    

Each week the produce varies a little bit based on what’s in season and what’s available and the week’s menus are posted online each week.
Our first loot included:

• Bundle of carrots
• Head of romaine lettuce
• Bunch of kale
• Bunch of beats
• Spring mix salad
• Two mangoes
• Butternut squash
• Head of broccoli
• 8 pears (4 of two different kinds)
• 8 apples (4 of two different kinds)
• 6 plums
• 3 onions
• Potatoes
• 3 oranges
• 1 eggplant

At the end of the week, all we had left was lettuce, a mangoe, and 3 plums.

And today, we received our second bundle.

Week Two

And for our second loot that we get to dive into this week:

• 1 Cauliflower
• 1 Celery
• 1 Local acorn squash
• 1 red beet bunch
• 1.5 lb red onions
• 1.5 lb yams
• 2 Cucumbers
• 3 Gala apples
• 2 Grapefruits
• 3 Red Stakrimson pears
• 3 Bartlett pears
• 3 Jonagold apples
• 1 Pomegranate
• 1 Red leaf lettuce
• 1 Spinach bunch
• 4 Valencia oranges
• 8 bananas
• 2 Green bell peppers
• 1 Kiwi Berries

What are kiwi berries you might ask??  We wondered the same thing … Erik and I think they’re pretty cool.

The outside, about the size or grapes:

The inside:

 

It’s like a little mini kiwi, ha.  So cute, and tastes just like kiwi.

Anyways … so far, our thoughts on Door to Door Organics??

- The taste and quality of the produce seems to be very good.  The fruit comes not-quite-ripe, so it lasts the whole week very well and some of it, beyond a week.

- The price, to us, isn’t too bad for what you’re getting.  Each large bundle we get is $55.00.  For all organic and delivered to our door, we’ll take it!  There is definitely no way we could get this selection, quality, and price of organics in our normal grocery store. 

Serve Yo’ Self

Happy Monday, slash, September 20th!

Today is my Monday off so just like my last Monday-off post, I’m on the road to KC with Erik stocking vending machines.

Stuck in a van all day that’s packed full of fun food, it’s only natural that I eat some of it.  You would too. ::: [REWIND TO YESTERDAY] :::

Yesterday, we were also in Kansas City for the purpose of running some errands.  With these errands, was included fun and good food in which my friend, Jenn, joined us in. 

We suckered Erik into taking some pictures of us.  Mostly, the ones where we weren’t ready are the best … go figure. Jennifer was longing to take a jumping picture so finally I obliged.

Clearly, I don’t have the art of photo jumping down … at all.  It didn’t occur to me until AFTER we had taken a billion pictures that I needed to actually BEND my legs … what a novel idea, right?
Once picture taking commenced, we ventured to none other than Yogurtini, our [lately] home away from home to consume some frozen yogurt.

It was PACKED.  As you can see below, the line was out the door and continued to stay so for quite some time. Erik really wanted his picture taken, as you can tell by his blatant enthusiasm ; )
My mix was as follows, with a little of each froyo flavor:

• Plain tart
• Apple tartini
• Mint
• Pineapple

They, of course, don’t sound like they belong together even a little bit … and maybe they don’t … but let me tell you, each and every flavor and bite was thoroughly enjoyed by me, my taste buds, and my stomach.   It’s probably a good thing 45 minutes separate me from Yogurtini because I might go there way too frequently if not.

:: [RANDOM SUBJECT SWITCH] ::

I’m sad for these (aka flowers, in general) … … to be shriveling and drying up for the impending season change but I’m actually really ready for fall.  Hello, pumpkin in everything! : )

What’s your favorite season??  My favorite season seems to be whatever season is next, ha.  In the summer, I love it, but I’m ready for fall.  In the fall, I love it, but I’m ready for winter (okay, at least the Christmas part of winter plus a little snow).  In winter, I’m ready for spring.  In spring, I love it, but I’m ready for summer.  Funny how that works. 

And despite how much I will be complaining about the cold and snow when winter does arrive, I’m secretly glad I live somewhere in which  I get to fully experience each season. (Shhh, I may never admit this again).

Catch you all later : )

Dear Blog World, It’s been awhile.

Dear Blog World,

It’s been awhile.  I am still alive.  Hello!

Life is still going great in Missouri … here’s a little bit of what’s been going in the world of Lesley Lifting Life:

First off, here’s a few things I seem to be consuming a lot of lately … and my taste buds have been thanking me, ha.

Chipotle.  Lots of Chipotle.  Chipotle on the front porch.  Ahhh : ) Peanut Butter & Co. dark chocolate peanut butter.  Lots of it, as well.  Okay, this stuff is SO GOOD.  I can’t believe it took me this long to try it … if you haven’t tried it, you MUST. Vanilla Chobani. Yes, lots of this too.  I’ve decided that without a doubt Chobani is my all time favorite greek yogurt thus far.  It’s just so smooth and delicious! And when you put the two together with a Van’s waffle?  … oh, my!

This combo is something special, folks! ; ) haha. Buitoni’s pasta.  Also … so good! And today, Erik and I ventured to KC, walked around the Westport art festival … … and, of course, ate some fro-yo at Yogurtini.  I think I could come here every day.  Such a cute place and such delicious frozen yogurt. After leaving Yogurtini with happily filled fro-yo bellies, we drove around for awhile and then headed back home.  On the way, we stopped for a few random grocery items and a small snack. 

The goods: I can’t help but really like Jay Robb’s bars.  I get really tired of date-based bars and nut-filled bars so this is a welcomed difference!  Locally made Bread of Life bread. Some coconut oil.  I love coconut oil egg sandwiches … mmm. And some bee pollen.  Erik has developed really bad allergies this past year or so and we read that having local bee pollen every day can help so he’s giving it a try.  Anyone have any bee pollen experience when it comes to allergies?  We figure it sure can’t hurt. That’s about all on my end … sorry I haven’t been around much!

I hope all you wonderful Lesley Lifting Life readers are thoroughly enjoying the start of Fall … I shall be back!

Sincerely,